Would appreciate any users providing longer term reviews of this roaster please.

Thanks.

I have one of the Santoker Revolution 500 and to put it quickly ... I'd buy it again.

Longer version ... I added the two available options: The Artisan upgrade: which is 3 thermoprobes probes in place with USB port on side to plug into a laptop to log your roast with Artisan Software and the cooling tray with stirring arms. Like both options. Not sure the stirring arms are necessary ... but they are fun!

The difficulties: Santoker is a small company and it is in China. If something happens, you have no real place to take it to get it fixed. So you must be willing to be a bit mechanical or have a friend that is. Santoker will talk to you to help figure out problems.

For example... I had difficulty getting Artisan to communicate with the computer. Apparently they used newer components and the settings were different from the Roaster Dustin (who imported them) had. After communicating with Leon using "we chat" cell phone app, we finally figured out that 1) although I could get the BT to display on the side of the machine in either Fahrenheit or Centigrade, the ET and MET probe did not go through that display panel and their readings were stuck in Centigrade. 2) the settings for Artisan were different and he sent them to me and they were correct 3) the reason I couldn't get the display to show the MET or the ET was because I had to turn the roaster off with artisan running and then turn it back on. Worked perfectly after that (I have to do this each roasting session) with the MET and ET being displayed. Leon said they would write a software patch for Artisan to convert the Centigrade input to Fahrenheit. So I've learned to roast in Centigrade. I have a conversion chart for Fahrenheit to Centigrade on the wall to look at once in a while when I read something about a roast in Fahrenheit. (afterward you can convert your graph to Fahrenheit if you want with the Artisan Software).

Another problem I had was that the coupling between the motor and the drum was not tightened down and eventually they uncoupled. I had to take the metal cowling off the roaster and fix it. easy. but when I tightened all the lock screws up it caused a cant in the coupling so it made an unpleasant noise / vibration when it roasted at certain speeds. I ended up solving this problem by getting a "shaft collar" and putting it on the shaft on the motor side of the coupling so I could keep the lock screws rather loose so there was no noise and the coupling could not pull apart. This has worked well.

It has been handy to have a place like Tacoma Screw reasonably close to buy metric screws / long metric hex wrenches and stuff like that. You can get anything you would need on the internet but not quite as fast (although that is where I got my Stainless Steel Shaft collar).

One Santoker owner had problems with his burners due to a burr of metal that was partially occluding the gas intake for one of the burners. He ended up removing them and reaming out the bore of the burner and fixed the problem.

The good stuff ... The roaster is amazing. I can't say I've had a bad roast ... although some are better than others depending on how I profile things ... but that is the learning curve. The roaster does have a variable drum speed and I found it roasts better with a rpm of 90 - 100. With the higher rotation speed I can roast down to 50gm and keep the BT probe surrounded by beans. Lower than that and the bean mass is below it at that low of bean charge. So I've just left it at the 90 rpm speed and haven't messed much with it since. The problems with the low bean roasts are trying to slow the roast down, You really need to drop at a lower temp or you are out of the drying period quite quickly. I have also roasted up to 600gm (once) but have no real need for that volume. I find that 227gm (1/2 pound) to 450gm is the sweet spot for my roaster. I really like 450 as I can fill a 12 oz valve bag up and have enough beans left over to either cup with or brew some coffee to make sure it is "good enough" to give to friends, and learn a bit about the profile I performed. You can roast in 10 minutes and hit first crack at 8 if you want. Lately I've had better tasting coffee with a bit longer roasts. A Sumatran did really well at 12 minutes and 13 was too long. I've tried the high air flow fast roasting profile I've seen posted and the roaster will hit those marks, but for me I don't get the amazing coffee that others talk about. Not sure what it is but I do best with 10 - 12 minute total roasts (usually stopping before 2nd crack).

The cooling tray on either version (standard or spin upgrade) has a very powerful fan which can cool the beans down in a minute or close to it. After discussing the roaster with people who roast in the industry, I've taken to opening the cleaning tray a bit at the bottom of the cooling tray box to allow some ambient air to be let in and in essence use the tray opening like a damper to decrease air flow through the beans slowing the cooling down to 2 - 3 minutes. The concern was that the high air flow of the cooling tray with the tray closed might tend to dry the beans out. (often I get lazy and am doing something else while the beans cool and they are cooling with air flowing past way longer than they need to be)

The trier works well. I am getting used to making sure I put it back in upside down ALL the time so beans don't remove themselves from the roasting process and sit in the trier. Once in a while a bean will pop out through the trier hole when you are looking at the beans ... just pick it up from the cooling tray and dump it back in through the hopper.

The fan damper and chaff collector work well. Some chaff does collect in the fan and I've had to clean the fins out once. Not a big deal. I usually vacuum out the chaff collector every third roast. I find the damper a good tool to fine tune temp changes in the roast ... it is more gentle than the gas valve which supplies the heat. The gas pressure valve seems to be really sensitive to movement and sometimes it is smoother to control it with the dial on the gas intake from the propane tank, but I use the one on the roaster.

I hope to roast for many years with this roaster and it shows no signs of breaking down with use (probably about 50 roasts on it so far). I have abused it such as shutting down the gas and letting it cool with the drum rotating and the fan going and forgetting about it and letting it run all night ... no problems. No electrical problems so far .... I guess that would be the problem ... if one of the electrical boards were to break and the safety features of the roaster wouldn't let you use it till it was fixed correctly. But I'm sure Santoker would get you the parts (it would just be a while). Mechanically it seems well built or even over built with a good size motor and fans (one for the airflow through the roaster/chaff collector and one for the cooling tray).

I am happy with my purchase and would do it again. But I am not afraid of getting down and dirty with the roaster either. It is capable of doing some fine roasts and can't imagine anything roasting better in it's price range.

Hope this is helpful. Happy to answer any questions ... perhaps another owner will chime in also.
I plan on going to the Seattle SCAA event and live about 35 minutes south of there. Happy to show you the roaster if interested.

Steve Egge
Puyallup, WA

Thanks so much for the generous and detailed review. I'm assuming that this is not your first roaster. Would you mind sharing what you used to roast prior and how the Santoker compares?

Hmmm .. big jump. I started with a Gene Café because I liked being able to vent the exhaust our of the house. I roasted on it for about a year with about 300 roasts on it. I also probed it with temperature probes and hooked it up to RoasterThing software. I liked the Gene but its shortcomings were that It was difficult to hear first crack well (and I have fairly good hearing) and somehow the knowledge that the temp gun was either all on or all off and that was how it heated the bean just seamed wrong to me ... although it turned out some pretty nice roasts. I did an e-stop procedure at the end of the roast and would run outside and dump my beans in a cooler to avoid coasting with the Gene cooling cycle. This scurrying with hot beans in the drum was quite amusing to my friends who watched me roast in the kitchen. In discussions on line it seemed to me that a few of the electric roasters seemed to have power issues and were not as responsive as their operators wanted them to be. I really wanted to roast with propane. I looked at lots of other machines and got quotes but couldn't really justify the price of a Diedrich, San Franciscan or a US Roaster (which was the most reasonable). The stories of importing a North Coffee Roaster and dealing with customs on my own was daunting to me. So I jumped on board when Dustin put out his initial offering of 6 roasters. So far it has turned out to be a good decision.

In comparison, The Santoker roasts faster than the Gene (10 vs 15 minutes) and is way responsive to changes in bean temp with adjustments in either temp or airflow. Power is not a problem and I pretty much can do most any profile I want to try. I also don't have to run outside with a hot bean drum in my hand to cool the beans off ...

Steve

Thanks so much Steve... two really helpful posts. I'll be making my mind up about upgrading to a gas roaster sometime this year.

Terence

Just a quick note ... Dustin sent me one of the long triers for The Santoker Revolution 500.
I weighted the beans each would hold (roaster beans)
Short Trier = 3.5 gms
Long Trier = 6.1 grms

Here is a pic:


Hey ... is anyone else besides me going to the SCAA event in Seattle. If so give me a shout.
Steve

question where can i get a santoker revolution and is there a different size? i am looking to buy that or a TJ-067.

any thoughts?

I would message osanco (Steve) and get his thoughts. He may be a little biased since he sells North roasters, but he helped me with my santoker at one point and had a good opinion of them.

Frank

Not sure what the fate is for future importation of the Santoker.
I met Dustin at the SCAA event and he came down to my roasting shack and finally saw one of the roasters he imported ... roasted on it and thought the cooling tray with spinning arms was pretty cool and it roasted well.
Dustin was put off by lack of follow through by the builders of the changes and specifications he wanted.
No real deal breakers but some hassles were: didn't have a 3/8 inch flare gas fitting - was 3/8 NPT; couldn't change computer readout to Fahrenheit -(now fixed in Artisan software); one of the roasters burners wasn't up to quality but was fixed with boring the burrs out; and some folks had some roaster vibration at certain roasting rpms - the speed is variable (I solved this problem by adding a shaft collar and loosening one of the sides of the coupling causing the coupling to cant and vibrate). And there were delays ... Santoker is a small company and they can't churn out roasters quickly ... most people who work on them have other jobs as well.
It just wasn't a fun enterprise for Dustin. And without a partner or something or a different business model - I am not sure he would venture into it again.
After going to the SCAA and looking at the "next level" of roasters (Proroasters - Toper - Probatino - San Franciscan - Detrich- ... boy I'm glad I got the Santoker. Nothing like it in it's price range ... I typically roast 360 gm as it fits perfectly in a 14oz bag .. but have roasted up to 600gm and the machine is capable of it. (can roast down to 100 but only at high speed to keep the beans in the probe - sweet spot is 300 - 450 I think) ...

From what I've read (and I have never seen one) ... the north seems to be a good machine.
But with both companies ... I think when you get a roaster from a non-USA source/dealer you have to be capable of tearing in to it if need be.
You can't call up the dealer and have it serviced .. they can send you a part but it will be a month before you get it and you or someone you know will have to install it.

Just some thoughts. Others can chime in ...

Steve Egge

JavaMD wrote:
From what I've read (and I have never seen one) ... the north seems to be a good machine.
But with both companies ... I think when you get a roaster from a non-USA source/dealer you have to be capable of tearing in to it if need be.
You can't call up the dealer and have it serviced .. they can send you a part but it will be a month before you get it and you or someone you know will have to install it.

Just some thoughts. Others can chime in ...

Steve Egge

As an owner of a North roaster, I do think you are right about the possible need and willingness to dig into the roaster if something goes wrong. After disposing of the humongous wood crate the roaster was shipped in, there is no way I can send it out for repairs. I don't expect osanco (Steve) to make a 700 mile round trip house calls to fix it. I am not especially mechanically-inclined, but a roaster is actually a fairly simple machine. Most of the electrical and many of the mechanical parts are industry standard. If I do get in over my head, I am confident that Steve will talk me through making the necessary repairs.

By the way, I didn't have to do anything besides write the check as far as importing the roaster. Steve did all of that work.

I paid about half the price that one of the next tier roasters would cost. I think my roaster functions every bit as well as those others, and has more features than many of them. It isn't a work of art like a San Franciscan, but it works. There has to be some trade-off in the economics of buying a Chinese roaster and each buyer has to decide what the best value is for himself.

Dregs